Good times are about to roll again downtown at the 39th annual Kent Cornucopia Days.
More than 600 vendors will fill 19 blocks and draw an estimated 250,000 people to the July 9-11 festival that features food, crafts, a fun run, dragon boat races, music, a carnival and a parade.
Al Morgan grabs one end of the large belt attached to the coffin to help lower it into the ground on a partly cloudy morning at the Tahoma National Cemetery.
The job was just one of the various tasks Morgan and eight other inmates (all nonviolent offenders) from the Kent city jail perform each day at the cemetery in unincorporated Kent near Maple Valley.
The crew also picks up old flowers at grave sites, digs holes to place headstones and makes sure the rows of headstones are lined up straight.
Lake Meridian residents simply call Brad Omon the "pyro."
Omon works as a pyrotechnician for Olympia-based Fireworks Entertainment Inc., the company that will produce the 10 p.m. show for Sunday's 12th-annual Fourth of July Splash at Lake Meridian Park.
Kent Park officials had to close down the fountains June 27 at Town Square Plaza Park after someone dumped laundry soap around the granite ball water feature the previous night.
Dance moves that got Alexis Berrysmith in trouble in preschool now have become her passion.
Whenever Berrysmith heard music in class, she couldn't sit still. She would stand up and dance. Even if her teacher told her to sit down.
That's one reason Berrysmith started dance lessons at age 6.
hen Sue heard last month that Safe Havens, the Kent-based domestic-violence visitation and exchange center she has used for three years, would stay open, she had one reaction.
“I just bawled,” Sue said over the phone June 21. “I was so relieved. I felt like an inmate with a death sentence given life again. We are talking about life and death here.”
Sue said Safe Havens is the only facility where she feels safe enough to drop off her 5-year-old daughter for a court-ordered, one-hour visit once a week with her father.
Organizers count on local performers, food, arts and craft vendors to make the Kent International Festival such a strong community event.
The second annual free festival runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 26 at the Town Square Plaza Park at the corner of Second Avenue and West Smith Street.
Jenny Kolin initially started to teach Irish dancing in the 1990s at a class at Kent Commons before she formed the Rowan Fae Irish dance group in 1999.
Fourteen dancers from Rowan Fae are part of the 16-group entertainment lineup at the Kent International Festival from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 26 at Town Square Plaza Park, Second Avenue and West Smith Street, in downtown Kent. Rowan Fae performs from 2:45-3:15 p.m. at the main stage.
Maria Lopez, of Kent, learned to make nylon purses by hand from her mother as a child in El Salvador.
Now Lopez, 43, sells the purses as one of the many vendors at the Kent Farmers Market downtown along Second Avenue between Smith and Gowe streets. The market opened June 5 and runs 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. each Saturday through Sept. 25.
Participants this year at The Relay for Life of Kent blew away expectations of event organizers by raising more than $222,000 June 4-5 at French Field to support cancer research.
Organizers set a goal to raise $195,000 this year, similar to the amount hit in 2009.
"We completely shattered our goals," said Lance Goodwin, event chairman, during a phone interview June 7. "That's pretty exciting for us."
Nearly 1,400 participants on 96 teams walked in the 12th annual Relay for Life of Kent June 4-5 at French Field at Kent-Meridian High School.
Traffic buzzes by Panther Lake resident John Gehlman as he walks along the sidewalk next to the heavily traveled Benson Highway near Southeast 224th Street.
Cheryl dos Remédios pointed to where the water and rocks should be as she stopped the afternoon of June 17 between the sculpted split-ring berms at Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks Park on the eastern edge of downtown Kent.
It is going to be a farewell concert of sorts for Kent saxophonist Darren Motamedy at the third annual Evening of Jazz and Art June 24 at the Kent Senior Activity Center.
Motamedy, the 2008 Kent School District teacher of the year for his work as a band instructor at several elementary schools, will move this summer to Las Vegas to teach band and jazz band at a middle school there.
Nearly four weeks after the killing of Seth Frankel, 41, a video program coordinator for the city of Kent, Auburn Police continue to investigate the case.
One man told Kent Police he had to answer his cell phone while driving because his plumber called.
A woman told an officer she simply forgot about the new state law, which allows police to ticket drivers if they are holding a cell phone to their ear or texting while driving.
The co-owners of the Kent Predators of the professional Indoor Football League will decide over the several weeks whether the team will return to the ShoWare Center for a second season in 2011, after losing "a lot of money" the first year.
Kent Police arrested a 32-year-old man for investigation of possession of a stolen vehicle, attempting to elude police, obstruction of an officer, drunk driving and possession of drug paraphernalia after stopping a car driving without its headlights on.
Kent-Meridian High School senior Larren Wright Jr. proudly walked up to the microphone to accept his scholarship award at the 2010 Kent Community Foundation Awards Banquet.
"It's an honor to be acknowledged for accomplishments in the classroom and on the athletic field," Wright said as the winner of the $500 Rob Osborne scholarship given to a Kent-Meridian student planning to attend a Washington college.
The positive impact on Miles Pekema of Kent, from playing a role in the Friendship Theatre's production of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," just keeps growing.
Pekema, 20, is one of 49 young adults and teens with developmental disabilities taking part in the production June 17-20 at the Knutzen Family Theatre in Federal Way. He plays a statue in one scene and a villager in other scenes
The search continues by Auburn Police to find the person responsible for the killing of Seth Frankel, a city of Kent video program coordinator.
